Category: Ethics

While the right’s war on history is distinct from its war on DEI, the two are connected. To justify the extermination of DEI efforts, the right is crafting a faerie tale version of history. One part of the strategy is to eliminate or downplay the history of racism, sexism and classism in the United States. If pressed, folks on the right might allow that slavery did exist or that, at one time, women could not vote. But they will also claim that slavery was not that bad (and even had good features) and some would even claim that it was good that women could not vote and that we should return to that practice. Those who admit the existence of past wrongs will assert that most (if not all) of the negative consequences remain in the past and that everything is mostly fine now. Crudely put, the narrative is that racism and sexism (if they ever existed or were even bad) have been solved. As an example, my adopted state of Florida passed a law restricting what schools can teach about systematic racism and a law forbidding General Education classes from teaching that systemic racism, sexism, oppression, and privilege are inherent in the U.S. “and were created to maintain social, political, and economic inequities.” Ironically, one might point out that these laws serve as more evidence that what they seek to deny is true. These efforts are aimed at whitewashing history.

The second part of the war on history is to downplay the success, accomplishments and contributions of minorities and women. For example, people at the Pentagon purged thousands of images showing minority and women war heroes and military firsts. As if to illustrate the absurdity of the purge, images of the Enola Gay (the name of the B-29 that dropped an atomic bomb on Japan) were purged, perhaps because the plane was seen as woke. Under Hegseth (who has been accused of domestic violence), the Pentagon has also been purging the ranks of minorities and women. These efforts are aimed at creating an illusory “history” in which women and minorities lack ability and merit. If pressed, some will allow rare exceptions, such as Dr. King and Madam Curie. To be fair and balanced, the right does allow that a few women (such as Pam Bondi and Kristi Noem) and a few minorities (such as Clarence Thomas and Stephen Miller) can have merit.

When these two fronts of this war on history are combined, it creates a counterfactual history in which any discrimination or oppression lie in the past (and were not really all that bad) and women and minorities have accomplished little, if anything. This narrative can then be used to attack DEI efforts. The “reasoning” is that there is no meaningful legacy of discrimination to address, no current discrimination to rectify, and that women and minorities have always received fair consideration. With the successes, accomplishments and contributions of women and minorities purged, it appears that they simply lacked merit. And, of course, still lack merit. Again, to be fair and balanced, those erasing history do allow that some select women and minorities do have merit, but they are the rare exceptions. They are either safely dead or, if alive, exist to serve and praise Trump.

Under this fiction, DEI was, at best, trying to solve non-existent problems and, at worst, aimed at discriminating against white men. And thus, the elimination of DEI is “justified” by a fictionalized history in which past discrimination against and the success of women and minorities is erased. The myth of merit is then advanced, with the Trump regime making the patently absurd claims that people like Trump and Hegseth earned their way through life by merit. Trump, of course, received millions from his father and Hegseth is widely regarded as unqualified by experts. One can also point to Dr. Oz, RFK Jr. and Linda McMahon as woefully unqualified officials in a regime that harps about “merit.”  In closing, if there was any merit to their anti-DEI arguments, the right would not need to whitewash and erase history.

There are many self-help books, but they all suffer from one fatal flaw: they assume the solution to your problems lies in changing yourself. This is a clearly misguided approach for many reasons.

The first is the most obvious. As Aristotle’s principle of identity states, A=A. Or, put in words, “each thing is the same with itself and different from another.” As such, changing yourself is impossible: to change yourself, you would cease to be you. The new person might be better. And, let’s face it, probably would be. But it would not be you. As such, changing yourself would be ontological suicide and you do not want any part of that.

The second is less obvious but is totally historical. Parmenides of Elea, a very dead ancient Greek philosopher, showed that change is impossible. I know that “Parmenides” sounds like cheese, perhaps one that would be good on spaghetti. But, trust me, he was a philosopher and would make a poor pasta topping. Best of all, he laid out his view in poetic form, the most truthful of truth conveying word wording:

 

How could what is perish? How could it have come to be? For if it came into being, it is not; nor is it if ever it is going to be. Thus coming into being is extinguished, and destruction unknown.

 

Nor was [it] once, nor will [it] be, since [it] is, now, all together, / One, continuous; for what coming-to-be of it will you seek? / In what way, whence, did [it] grow? Neither from what-is-not shall I allow / You to say or think; for it is not to be said or thought / That [it] is not. And what need could have impelled it to grow / Later or sooner, if it began from nothing? Thus [it] must either be completely or not at all.

 

[What exists] is now, all at once, one and continuous… Nor is it divisible, since it is all alike; nor is there any more or less of it in one place which might prevent it from holding together, but all is full of what is.

 

And it is all one to me / Where I am to begin; for I shall return there again.

 

That, I think we can all agree, is completely obvious and utterly decisive. Since you cannot change, you cannot self-help yourself by changing. That is just good logic. I would say more, but I do not get paid by the word to write this stuff. I do not get paid at all.

But, obviously enough, you want to help yourself to a better life. Since you cannot change and it should be assumed with 100% confidence that you are not the problem, an alternative explanation for your woes is needed. Fortunately, the problem is obvious: other people. The solution is equally obvious: you need to get new people. Confucius said, “Refuse the friendship of all who are not like you.” This was close to the solution, but if you are annoying or a jerk, being friends with annoying jerks is not going to help you. A better solution is to tweak Confucius just a bit: “Refuse the friendship of all who do not like you.” This is a good start, but more is needed. After all, it is obvious that you should just be around people who like you. But that will not be totally validating.

The goal is, of course, to achieve a Total Validation Experience (TVE). A TVE is an experience that fully affirms and validates whatever you feel needs to be validated at the time. It might be your opinion about Mexicans or your belief that your beauty rivals that of Adonis and Helen. Or it might be that your character build in World of Warcraft is fully and truly optimized.

By following this simple dictate “Refuse the friendship of all who do not totally validate you”, you will achieve the goal that you will never achieve with any self-help book: a vast ego, a completely unshakeable belief that you are right about everything, and all that is good in life. You will never be challenged and never feel doubt. It will truly be the best of all possible worlds. So, get to work on surrounding yourself with Validators.  What could go wrong? Nothing. Nothing at all.

As this is being written, people are fleeing wars, crime and economic woes around the world. As with past exoduses, some greet the refugees with kindness, some with indifference and some with hate. As a philosopher, my main concern is with the ethics of obligations to refugees.

One approach is to apply the golden rule—to do unto others as we would have them do unto us. While most readers are probably living lives of relatively good fortune, it is easy to imagine one’s life falling apart due to war or other disaster, human made or natural. In such circumstances, a person would almost certainly want help. As such, if the golden rule has moral validity, then help should be rendered to refugees.

One objection is that people should solve their own problems. In the case of nation at war, it could be contended that people should stay and fight. Or, at the very least, they should not expect others to do their work for them. In the case of those trying to find a better life elsewhere, it could be argued that they should remain in their home countries and build a viable economy. These are, of course, variations of “pull yourself up by your own bootstraps.”

One could also advance a house analogy. Imagine, if you will, that the neighbors down the road are fighting among themselves and wrecking their house. Some of them, tired of the conflict, show up at your door and insist that you put them up and feed them. Though it might be kind of you to help them, it could also be said that they should put their own house in order. After all, you have managed to keep your house from falling into chaos and they should be able to do the same. There is also the concern that they will wreck your house as well.

This analogy assumes that the fighting and wrecking began in the house down the road and no outsider contributed to starting the trouble If, for example, people were put arbitrarily into houses and subject to relentless outside interference, then the inhabitants would not bear full responsibility for their woes—so the problems they would need to solve would not be entirely their own. This would seem to provide a foundation for an obligation to help them, at least on the part of those who helped cause the trouble they face.

If, as another example, the house was invaded from the outside, then that would also change matters. In this case, the people fleeing the house would be trying to escape criminals and it would certainly be a wicked thing to slam the door in the face of victims of crime.

As a final example, if the head of the household was subjecting the weaker members of the household to domestic abuse, then it would also change the situation in relevant ways. If abused people showed up at one’s door, it would be heartless to send them back to be abused.

Interestingly, the house analogy can also be repurposed into a self-interest argument for taking in refugees. Imagine, if you will, a house of many rooms that were once full of people. Though the house is still inhabited, there are far fewer people and many of them are old and in need of care. There is much that needs to be done in the house, but not enough people to do it all.

Nearby are houses torn with violence and domestic abuse, with people fleeing from them. Many of these people are young and many are skilled in doing what needs to be done in the house of many rooms. As such, rational self-interest provides an excellent reason to open the doors and take in those fleeing. The young immigrants can assist in taking care of the native elderly and the skilled can fill empty jobs. In this case, acting in self-interest would coincide with doing the right thing.

There are, of course, at least two counters to this self-interest analogy. One is the moral problem of taking in people out of self-interest while letting the other houses fall into ruin. This does suggest that a better approach would be to try to bring peace to those houses. However, if peace is unlikely, then taking in those fleeing would seem to be morally acceptable.

Another is a practical concern—that some of those invited in will bring ruin and harm to their new house. While this fear is played up, the danger presented by refugees seems to be rather low—after all, they are refugees and not an invading army. That said, it is reasonable to consider the impact of refugees and to take due care in screening for criminals.

Each of us has a hill that is life. I can see the hills of other people. Some are still populated, some still bear the footprints of a recently departed runner, and many are cold with long abandonment. While I can see these other hills, I can only run on my own and no one else can run mine. That is how it is, poetry and movies notwithstanding.  In truth, we all run alone.

I am (in fact and metaphor) a distance runner. Running the marathon and greater distances gave me a sneak peak at old age. I finished my first marathon at the age of 22, at the peak of my strength, crossing the line in 2:45. Having consulted with old feet at marathons, I knew that the miles would beat me like a piñata—only instead of candy, I would be full of pain. I hobbled along slowly for the next few days—barely able to run. But, being young, I was soon back up to speed, forgetting that brief taste of the cruelty of time. But time never forgets us. Although I know that time will eventually run out of me.

We runners often obsess about numbers. We record our race times, our training distances and much more. While everyone is aware that the march of time eventually becomes a slide downhill, runners are forced to face the objective quantification of their decline. Though I started running in high school, I did not become a runner until after my first year as a college athlete in 1985 and I only started recording my run data back in 1987. I, with complete faith in my young brain, was sure I would remember my times forever.

My first victory in a 5K was in 1985—I ran an 18:20. My time improved considerably: I broke 18, then 17 and (if my memory is not a false one) even 16. Then, as must happen, I reached the peak of my running hill and the decline began. I struggled to stay under 17, fought to stay under 18, battled to stay below 19, and then warred to remain below 20. The realization of the damage done by time sunk home when my 5K race pace was the same as the pace for my first marathon. Once, I sailed through 26.2 miles at about a 6:20 per mile pace. Now I cannot do that for even a mile. Another marker was when my 5-mile race time finally became slower than my 10K race time (33 minutes). Damn the numbers.

Each past summer, I have returned to my hometown and run the routes of my youth. Back in the day, I would run 16 miles at a 7 minute per mile pace. Now I shuffle along. But dragging all those years will slow a man down. When I ran those old routes, I sped up when I hit the coolness of the pine forest—the years momentarily dropped away and I felt like a young man again. But, like the deerflies that haunt the woods, the years soon caught up and bit me. Unlike the deerflies, I cannot just swat them down. Rather, they are swatting me down and, like many a deerfly, I will eventually be crushed and broken by something greater than I. Someday, I will go out for a run and never come back, leaving my hill cooling in the frost of time. But until that day, the run goes on. And on.

Those who were critical of Kim Davis, the county clerk who refused to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples and was jailed for being in contempt of court, often appealed to a rule of law principle. The main principle seems to be that individual belief should not be used to trump the law.

Some of those who supported Davis made the point that some state and local governments have ignored federal laws covering drugs and immigration. To be more specific, it was pointed out that some states legalized (or decriminalized) marijuana even though federal law still defined it as a controlled substance. It was also pointed out that some local governments were ignoring federal immigration law and acting on their own—such as issuing identification to illegal immigrants and providing services.

Some of Davis’ supporters even noted that some who insist that Davis follow the law tolerate or even support state and local governments that ignored the federal drug an immigration laws.

One way to respond to such assertions is to claim that Davis’ defenders were using the red herring tactic. This is when an irrelevant topic is introduced to divert attention from the original issue. The tactic is to try to “win” a dispute by drawing attention away from the original argument onto another issue. If the issue is whether Davis should have followed the law, the failure of some states and local governments to enforce federal law is irrelevant. This is like a speeder who has been pulled over and argues that she should not get a ticket because another officer did not ticket someone else for speeding. What some other officer did or did not do to some other speeder is not relevant. As such, this approach would have failed to defend Davis.

In regard to the people who said Davis should follow the law yet were seemingly fine with the federal drug and immigration laws being ignored, to assert that they were wrong about Davis because of what they think about the other laws would commit the tu quoque ad hominem. This fallacy is committed when it is concluded that a person’s claim is false because it is inconsistent with something else a person said. Since fallacies are arguments whose premises fail to logically support the conclusion, this tactic would not have logically defended Davis.

Those who wanted to defend Davis could, however, have made an appeal to consistency and fairness: if it is acceptable for the states and local governments to ignore federal laws without punishment, then it would seem acceptable for Kim Davis to have ignored these laws without being punished. Those not interested in defending Davis could also have made the point that consistency does require that if Davis should have been compelled to obey the law about same-sex marriage, then the same principle should have been applied in regards to the drug and immigration laws. As such, the states and local governments that did not enforce these laws should have been compelled to enforce them and any failure to do so should have resulted in legal action against the state officials who failed to do their jobs.

This line of reasoning is plausible but can be countered by attempting to show a relevant difference (or differences) between the laws. In practice most people do not use this approach—rather, they have the “principle” that the laws they like should be enforced and the laws they oppose should not be enforced. This is, obviously enough, not a legitimate legal or moral principle.  This applies to those who like same-sex marriage (and think the law should be obeyed) and those who dislike it (and think the law should be ignored). It also applies to those who like marijuana (and think the laws should be ignored) and those who dislike it (and think the laws should be obeyed).

In terms of making the relevant difference argument, there are many possible approaches depending on which difference is as relevant. Those who wished to defend Davis might have argued that her resistance to the law was based on her religious views and hence her disobedience could have been justified on the grounds of religious liberty. Of course, there are those who opposed (and still oppose) immigration laws on religious grounds and even some who opposed the laws against drugs on theological grounds. As such, if the religious liberty argument applies in one case, it can also be applied to the others that involve religious belief. But the general approach seems to be that religious liberty is for discrimination.

Those who wanted Davis to follow the law but who opposed the enforcement of certain drug and immigration laws could have argued that Davis’ violated the constitutional rights of citizens and that this was a sufficient difference to justify a difference in enforcement. The challenge is, obviously enough, working out why this difference justified not enforcing the drug and immigration laws in question.

Another option is to argue that the violation of moral rights suffices to warrant not enforcing a law and protecting rights warrants enforcing a law. The challenge is showing that the rights of the same-sex couples overrode Davis’ claim to a right to religious liberty and showing  moral rights to use certain drugs and to immigrate even when it is illegal to do so. These things can be done but go beyond the scope of this essay.

My own view is that consistency requires the enforcement of laws. If the laws are such that they should not be enforced, then they need to be repealed. I do, however, recognize the legitimacy of civil disobedience in the face of laws that a person of informed conscience regards as unjust. But, as those who developed the theory of civil disobedience were aware, there are consequences to such disobedience.

Years ago, Kim Davis, a country clerk in Kentucky, refused to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples on the grounds that doing so violates her religious beliefs. When questioned about this, she replied  acted “under God’s authority.” It was argued that it would violate her religious freedom to be compelled to follow the law and do her job. This past situation raises numerous important issues about obedience and liberty. I am reconsidering this issue because of moral questions about obeying commands from the Trump administration that an official might disagree with. As a philosopher, I endeavor to follow my principles consistently rather than having one principle for when I like what someone is doing and another when I dislike the same sort of action, such as disobeying the state.

When taking a position in situations like this, people generally do not consider the matter in terms of general principles about such things as religious liberty and obedience to the state. Rather, the focus tends to be on whether one agrees or disagrees with the very specific action. In the Davis case, it is not surprising that people who oppose same-sex marriage agreed with her decision to disobey the law and claim that she had a moral right to do so. It is also not surprising that those who favor same-sex marriage tended to think that she should have obeyed the law and that it was morally wrong for her to disobey the law of the land.

In the case of officials who have resisted the immigration policies designed by Stephen Miller, those who agree with these policies will tend to think that the state should be obeyed and these will surely include people who supported Kim Davis’s view. Those who oppose these policies, which will include people who thought Davis should have obeyed the law, will be inclined to support disobedience to these laws and policies.

The problem with this sort of approach is that it is unprincipled. Unless being in favor of disobedience one likes and opposing disobedience one dislikes is a reasonable moral position. Moral consistency requires the application of a general principle that applies to all relevantly similar cases, rather than simply going with how one feels about a particular issue.

In regard to the situation involving Davis, many of her defenders tried to present this as a religious liberty issue: Davis was wronged by the law because it compelled her to act in violation of her religious beliefs. Her right to this liberty presumably outweighs the rights of the same-sex couples who expected her to follow the law and do her job.

In the case of officials resisting immigration laws and policies, their reasoning would be based on moral grounds and that morality trumps the law and policy in this case. The matter is also complicated by the fact that the immigration “enforcement” sometimes violates the law.

Having been influenced by Henry David Thoreau’s arguments for civil disobedience and by Thomas Aquinas, I agree that an individual should follow her informed conscience over the dictates of the state. The individual must, of course, expect to face the consequences of this civil disobedience and these consequences might include fines, being fired or even spending time in prison. Like Thoreau, I believe that a government official who finds the law too onerous should endeavor to change it and, failing that, should resign rather than obey a law they regard as unjust. As such, my general principle is that a person has the moral right to refuse to follow a law that their informed conscience regards as immoral.

In the case of Davis, if she acted in accord with her informed conscience, then she had the moral right to refuse to follow the same-sex marriage law. However, having failed to change the law, she needed to either agree to follow this law or resign.

In the case of immigration, the officials should take the same approach. However, when the law is violated by the federal government, then the state and local officials have the right to resist. They would, after all, be the ones following the law.

That said, I understand a person’s informed conscience can be in error—that is, what she thinks is right is not right. It might even be morally wrong. Because of this, I also accept the view that while a person should follow his informed conscience, the actions that follow from this might be morally wrong. If they are wrong, the person has obviously acted wrongly. But, to the degree that they followed their informed conscience, they can be justly excused in regards to their motivations. But the actions (and perhaps the consequences) would remain wrong.

Since I favor liberty in regard to marriage between consenting adults (and have written numerous essays and a book on this subject), I believe that Davis’ view about same-sex marriage was in error. Though I think she is wrong, if she acted in accord with her informed conscience and due consideration of the moral issue, then I respect her moral courage in sticking to her ethics.

In the case of how immigration has been handled under Trump, I see it as consistently immoral and probably often illegal (I’ll leave that to the lawyers). As such, I would generally see resisting the immoral and illegal actions as morally correct.

While subject to the usual range of inconsistencies, I do endeavor to apply my moral principles consistently. As such, I apply these principles to all relevantly similar cases. As such, whenever there is a conflict between an individual’s professed moral views and the law she is supposed to enforce, I ask two questions. The first is “is the person acting in accord with her informed conscience?” The second is “is the person right about the ethics of the matter?” This is rather different from approaching the matter by asking “do I agree with the person on this specific issue?”

As noted above, some of the defenders of Davis cast this as a religious liberty issue. In this case, the implied general principle would be that when an official’s religious views conflict with a law, then the person has the right to refuse to follow the law. After all, if religious liberty is invoked as a justification here, then it should work equally well in all relevantly similar cases. As such, if Davis should be allowed to ignore the law because of her religious belief, then others must be allowed the same liberty.

As might be suspected, folks that oppose same-sex marriage on religious would probably agree with this principle—at least in cases that match their opinions. However, it seems likely that many people would not be in favor of consistently applying this principle. Let us consider immigration.

The bible is reasonable clear about how foreigners should be treated. Leviticus, which is usually cited to condemn same-sex marriage, commands that “The foreigner residing among you must be treated as your native-born. Love them as yourself, for you were foreigners in Egypt. I am the LORD your God.” Exodus says “”Do not mistreat or oppress a foreigner, for you were foreigners in Egypt” while Deuteronomy adds to this that “And you are to love those who are foreigners, for you yourselves were foreigners in Egypt.”

Given this biblical support for loving and treating foreigners well, ICE agents and immigration officials have religious support for refusing to enforce immigration laws violating their conception of love and good treatment. For example, a border patrol agent could, on religious grounds, refuse to prevent people from crossing the border. As another example, a judge could refuse to send people back to another country on the grounds of what the bible says about treating the foreigner as a native born. I suspect that if officials started invoking religious freedom to break immigration laws, there would be little or no support for their religious liberty from the folks who support religious liberty when it comes to discrimination.

As another example, consider what the bible says about usury. Exodus says, “If you lend money to any of my people with you who is poor, you shall not be like a moneylender to him, and you shall not exact interest from him.”  Ezekiel even classified charging interest as an abomination: “Lends at interest, and takes profit; shall he then live? He shall not live. He has done all these abominations; he shall surely die; his blood shall be upon himself.” If religious liberty allows an official to break or ignore laws, then judges and law enforcement personnel who accept these parts of the bible would be allowed to, for example, refuse to arrest or sentence people for failing to pay interest on loans.

This can be generalized to all relevantly similar situations involving law-breaking or law ignoring by officials who do so by appealing to religious liberty. As might be imagined, accepting a principle that religious liberty grants an official an exemption to the law would warrant the breaking or ignoring many laws. Given this consequence, accepting the general principle of allowing religious liberty to trump the law would be unwise. However, it is wise to think beyond one’s feeling about one specific case to consider the implications of accepting a general principle.

As the Future of Life Institute’s open letter shows, people are concerned about the development of autonomous weapons. This concern is reasonable, if only because any weapon can be misused to advance evil goals. However, a strong case can be made in favor of autonomous weapons.

As the open letter indicated, a stock argument for autonomous weapons is that their deployment could result in decreased human deaths. If, for example, an autonomous ship is destroyed in battle, then no humans will die on that ship. It is worth noting that the ship’s AI might eventually be a person, thus there could be one death. In contrast, the destruction of a crewed warship could result in hundreds of deaths. On utilitarian grounds, the use of autonomous weapons would seem morally fine, at least if their deployment reduced the number of deaths and injuries.

The open letter expresses, rightly, concerns that warlords and dictators will use autonomous weapons. But this might be an improvement over the current situation. These warlords and dictators often conscript their troops and some, infamously, enslave children to serve as their soldiers. While it would be better for a warlord or dictator to have no army, it seems morally preferable for them to use autonomous weapons rather than them using conscripts and children.

It can be replied that the warlords and dictators would just use autonomous weapons in addition to their human forces, thus there would be no saving of lives. This is worth considering. But, if the warlords and dictators would just use humans anyway, the autonomous weapons would not seem to make much of a difference, except in terms of giving them more firepower, something they could also accomplish by using the money spent on autonomous weapons to better train and equip their human troops.

At this point, it is only possible to estimate (guess) the impact of autonomous weapons on the number of human casualties and injuries. However, it seems somewhat more likely they would reduce human casualties, assuming that there are no other major changes in warfare.

A second appealing argument in favor of autonomous weapons is that smart weapons are smart. While an autonomous weapon could be designed to be imprecise, the general trend in smart weapons has been towards ever increasing precision. Consider, for example, aircraft bombs and missiles. In the First World War, these bombs were primitive and inaccurate (they were sometimes thrown from planes by hand). WWII saw some improvements in bomb sights and unguided rockets were used. In following wars, bomb and missile technology improved, leading to the smart bombs and missiles of today that have impressive precision. So, instead of squadrons of bombers dropping tons of dumb bombs on cities, a small number of aircraft can engage in relatively precise strikes against specific targets. While innocents still perish in these attacks, the precision of the weapons has made it possible to greatly reduce the number of needless deaths. Autonomous weapons could be even more precise, thus reducing causalities even more. This seems to be desirable.

In addition to precision, autonomous weapons could (and should) have better target identification capacities than humans. If recognition software continues to irmpove, it is easy to imagine automated weapons that can rapidly distinguish between friends, foes, and civilians. This would reduce deaths from friendly fire and unintentional killings of civilians. Naturally, target identification would not be perfect, but autonomous weapons could be better than humans since they do not suffer from fatigue, emotional factors, and other things that interfere with human judgement. Autonomous weapons would presumably also not get angry or panicked, thus making it far more likely they would maintain target discipline (only engaging what they should engage).

To make what should be an obvious argument obvious, if autonomous vehicles and similar technology are supposed to make the world safer, then it would seem to follow that autonomous weapons could do something similar for warfare. But this does lead to a reasonable concern: driverless cars seem to be the future of transportation in the sense that they will always be in the future. If getting an autonomous car to operate safely on the streets is far beyond current technology, then getting an autonomous weapon system to operate “safely” in the chaos of battle seems all but impossible.

It can be objected that autonomous weapons could be designed to lack precision and to kill without discrimination. For example, a dictator might have massacrebots to deploy in cases of civil unrest. These robots would slaughter everyone in the area. Human forces, one might contend, would often show at least some discrimination or mercy.

The easy and obvious reply to this is that the problem is not in the autonomy of the weapons but the way they are being used. The dictator could achieve the same results (mass death) by deploying a fleet of drones loaded with demolition explosives, but this would presumably not be reasons to have a ban on drones or explosives. There is also the fact that dictators, warlords and terrorists can easily find people to carry out their orders, no matter how awful they might be. That said, it could still be argued that autonomous weapons would result in more murders than would the use of human killers.

A third argument in favor of autonomous weapons rests on the claim advanced in the open letter that autonomous weapons will become cheap to produce, analogous to Kalashnikov rifles. On the downside, as the authors argue, this could result in the proliferation of these weapons. On the plus side, if these highly effective weapons are so cheap to produce, this could enable existing militaries to phase out their incredibly expensive human operated weapons in favor of cheap autonomous weapons. By replacing humans, these weapons could also create savings in terms of the cost of recruitment, training, food, medical treatment, and retirement. This would allow countries to switch that money to more positive areas, such as education, infrastructure, social programs, health care and research. So, if the autonomous weapons are as cheap and effective as the letter claims, then it would seem to be a great idea to use them to replace existing weapons.

But there is the reasonable concern that decisions about military spending in some countries is not based on a rational assessment of costs and benefits. Such spending can be aimed at diverting resources from social programs and into the coffers of corporations. In such cases the availability of cheap, effective weapons would not meaningfully change defense spending.

A fourth argument in favor of autonomous weapons is that they could be deployed, at low political cost, on peacekeeping operations. Currently, the UN must send human troops to dangerous areas. These troops are often outnumbered and ill-equipped relative to the challenges they face. However, if autonomous weapons were as cheap and effective as the letter claims, then they would be ideal for these missions. Assuming they are cheap, the UN could deploy a much larger autonomous weapon force for the same cost as deploying a human force. There would also be far less political cost as people who might balk at sending their fellow citizens to keep peace in some war zone will probably be fine with sending robots.

An extension of this argument is that autonomous weapons could allow the nations of the world to engage terrorist groups, such as was the case with ISIS, without having to pay the high political cost of sending in human forces. The cheap and effective weapons predicted by the letter would seem ideal for this task.

Considering the above arguments, it seems that autonomous weapons should be developed and deployed. However, the concerns of the letter do need to be addressed. As with existing weapons, there should be rules governing the use of autonomous weapons (although much of their use would fall under existing rules and laws of war) and efforts should be made to keep them from proliferating to warlords, terrorists and dictators. As with most weapons, the problem lies with the misuse of the weapons and not with the weapons themselves.

Back on July 28, 2015 the Future of Life Institute released an open letter expressing opposition to the development of autonomous weapons. As of this writing, you can still sign it. Although the name of the organization sounds like one I would use as a cover for an evil, world-ending cult in my Call of Cthulhu campaign, I assume this group is sincere in its professed values. While I do respect their position, I believe they are mistaken. I will assess and reply to the arguments in the letter.

As the letter notes, an autonomous weapon can select and engage targets without human intervention. A science fiction example of such a weapon is the claw of Philip K. Dick’s classic “Second Variety.” A real world example , albeit a stupid one, is the land mine: they are placed and engage automatically.

The first main argument presented in the letter is a proliferation argument. If a major power pushes AI development, the other powers will also do so, creating an arms race. This will lead to the development of cheap, easy to mass-produce AI weapons. These weapons, it is claimed, will end up being acquired by terrorists, warlords, and dictators. These people will use these weapons for assassinations, destabilization, oppression and ethnic cleansing. That is, for what these people already use existing weapons to do. This raises concern about whether autonomous weapons would have a significant impact.

The authors of the letter have a reasonable point: as science fiction stories have long pointed out, killer robots tend to obey orders and they can (in fiction) be extremely effective. However, history has shown that terrorists, warlords, and dictators rarely have trouble finding humans who are willing to commit evil. Humans are also quite good at doing evil and although killer robots are awesomely competent in fiction, it remains to be seen if they will be better than humans in the real world. Especially cheap, mass-produced weapons.

That said, it is reasonable to be concerned that a small group or individual could buy a cheap robot army when they would otherwise not be able to put together a human force. These “Walmart” warlords could be a real threat in the future, although small groups and individuals can already do significant damage with existing technology, such as homemade bombs. They can also easily create weaponized versions of non-combat technology, such as civilian drones and autonomous cars. Even if robotic weapons are not manufactured, enterprising terrorists and warlords can build their own. Think, for example, of a self-driving car equipped with machine guns or loaded with explosives.

A reasonable reply is that the warlords, terrorists and dictators would have a harder time without cheap, off the shelf robotic weapons. This, it could be argued, would make the proposed ban on autonomous weapons worthwhile on utilitarian grounds: it would result in less deaths and less oppression.

The authors then claim that just as chemists and biologists are generally not in favor of creating chemical or biological weapons, most researchers in AI do not want to design AI weapons. They do argue that the creation of AI weapons could create a backlash against AI in general, which has the potential to do considerable good (although there are those who are convinced that even non-weapon AIs will wipe out humanity).

The authors do have a reasonable point here. Members of the public can panic over technology in ways that can impede the public good. One example is vaccines and the anti-vaccination movement. Another example is the panic over GMOs that is having some negative impact on the development of improved crops. But, as these two examples show, backlash against technology is not limited to weapons, so the AI backlash could arise from any AI technology and for no rational reason. A movement might arise, for example, against autonomous cars. Interestingly, military use of technology seems to rarely create backlash from the public. People do not refuse to fly in planes because the military uses them to kill people. Most people also love GPS, which was developed for military use.

The authors note that chemists, biologists and physicists have supported bans on weapons in their fields. This might be aimed at attempting to establish an analogy between AI researchers and other researchers, perhaps to try to show these researchers that it is a common practice to be in favor of bans against weapons in one’s area of study. Or, as some have suggested, the letter might be making an analogy between autonomous weapons and weapons of mass destruction (biological, chemical and nuclear weapons).

One clear problem with the analogy is that biological, chemical and nuclear weapons tend to be the opposite of robotic smart weapons: they “target” everyone without any discrimination. Nerve gas, for example, injures or kills everyone. A nuclear bomb also kills or wounds everyone in the area of effect. While AI weapons could carry nuclear, biological or chemical payloads and they could be set to kill everyone, this lack of discrimination and WMD nature is not inherent to autonomous weapons. In contrast, most proposed autonomous weapons seem intended to be precise and discriminating in their killing. After all, if the goal is mass destruction, there is already the well-established arsenal of biological, chemical and nuclear weapons. Terrorists, warlords and dictators often have no problems using WMDs already and AI weapons would not seem to significantly increase their capabilities.

In my next essay on this subject, I will argue in favor of AI weapons.

While there are many virtues (and vices) relevant to my philosophy of violence, the virtue of courage is central. In this context, the virtue of courage is the ability to regulate the emotion of fear so that you feel the right amount of fear at the right time, on the right occasion, towards the right cause, for the right purpose and in the right manner. Sorting out all these rights is challenging.

While cowardice tends to be condemned more than foolhardiness, both are vices. An excess of courage can lead a person to misjudge a situation and choose violence from overconfidence. But I am inclined to think that a deficiency of courage is the more dangerous vice, since fear distorts perception and judgment in ways that can lead to a person acting wrongly. As I found out in the “machete that wasn’t” incident, fear can enhance the misperception of objects, making a stick appear to be a machete or a phone look like a gun. This can cause a person to use what they think is justified violence as they protect themselves from, for example, a machete. Fear can also cause a person to misread other people and situations, such as perceiving innocent movements as dangerous. This can also cause people to use what they think is justified violence as they respond to someone they see as a clear threat. These are two of the many reasons why courage is an important virtue and why training for courage is a worthwhile endeavor.

Thanks to the problem of other minds I, unlike Bill Clinton, cannot feel your pain or your fear. I can only discuss my own internal experiences and infer, by analogy, that you have similar experiences. Based on my experiences, it seems that there are at least two modes of courage. The first is what I experienced in the “machete that wasn’t” incident and the second is the type I experience in the context of heights, such as flying.

When I (wrongly) perceived a person running at me with a machete, I felt a spike of fear. After that triggered a useful burst of adrenalin, the fear vanished and was replaced by cold, calm clarity. I was able to act with courage for the simple reason that I was no longer afraid. While getting a closer view of the “machete” allowed me to see it was just a big stick, the absence of fear no doubt also helped and allowed me to assess the situation more accurately. It also allowed me to act rationally rather than being driven by fear. This enabled me to speak to the person rather than simply attacking or endangering myself by fleeing in fear. I did not feel courageous and can best describe it as feeling utterly normal, as if I was still just running along peacefully or reading a book. Fortunately, I also did not feel fearless in the sense of being foolhardy and ready to engage in savage battle without care or concern. It, to go with my usual porridge metaphor, was just right—just what was needed to take the right action.

While I am a philosopher, I am interested in neuroscience, and I wonder what a brain scan at that moment would have revealed. While I was not aware of any fear (and hence, by definition, not feeling fear), perhaps those fear neurons were firing away as I ignored them. Which leads to the second mode of courage.

I am terrified of heights. While this might be understandable given that I had a ladder fail and suffered a quadriceps tendon tear, I was afraid of heights long before then. Getting on a ladder, being on a mountain, looking out the window of a tall building, and flying cause a welling of fear in my soul. I even feel it in video games. Even when my rationality tells me I am not in danger, I can feel the threat. Yes, I have tried various means of habituating myself to heights, but these have had no effect on my feeling fear. Last May, when I was flying home for my father’s funeral, I told the person (a retired NFL player) sitting beside me about my fear and he sensible asked me “Are you going to be a problem?” I assured him that I would not, and when he saw me showing no signs of concern during the takeoff, he relaxed his vigilance. That was when, of course, I struck. I am joking—otherwise you would have seen a YouTube video about an NFL player tackling a philosophy professor on a flight to Atlanta. While I appeared calm and acted normally, I was terrified the entire time—unlike my courage during a potential fight, my courage in the face of height manifests very differently. The fear is there the entire time. Sometimes it feels as if the fear is like a strong dog pulling on a leash, but I can keep it from running wild. Other times, it is like a wind I can feel, but one that has no power over me. The difference might be because they are different fears, because of a difference in my training, or perhaps I am far more afraid of heights than I am of fighting. Fortunately, the result is the same: I can act rationally as opposed to being driven about by fear. But I do find feeling fear more tiring than the absence of the feeling, although I can endure the fear of heights for hours (and I have yet to find my limit). I suspect that one difference is that my training in increases my confidence in dealing with potential violence, while there is no training I can do to counter the harms of falling from a great height. But I do admit, my fear of heights is excessive, even given the fact that a fall can easily injure or kill me. I am still trying to address this, although without success. But what about when people are trained to be afraid and then sent out on the streets with guns?

In the United States, there is a longstanding trend to train police to be warriors. While there are obvious concerns about seeing the police as warriors rather than those who protect and serve, Warrior-style police training teaches officers to feel, and act upon, fear by presenting the world as an extremely dangerous place where any interaction can kill them. Encouraging officers to view citizens as potential threats is likely to make them more afraid, especially if it is not countered by proper training in the virtues.

As discussed above and in the earlier essays, fear shapes perceptions in ways that increase the chances of unjustified and needless violence. An officer habituated to be afraid is more likely to see a phone as a gun and to interpret an innocent movement as a prelude to an attack. While officers should have a realistic view of dangers, their training should focus on habituating them to be masters of their fear rather than ruled by it. Unless, of course, the goal is to send frightened warriors out into the streets with the intention that they will be more likely to engage in violence. What makes matters even worse is the deluge of fear mongering and racism flowing forth from some media outlets and from some politicians. We, and the police are included in this, are told that minorities and migrants are a terrible threat, likely to engage in violence because they are members of gangs, physically dangerous and morally wicked. Anyone who is inundated with this is likely to have their fear increased, making it less likely they will act with courage—even if they wish to do so. While this is but one factor among many, it does help explain why some ICE agents and police officers use violence needlessly: they have been trained to be fearful warriors and deluged with a spew of terror towards the people they are interacting with. If the goal is for people to be needlessly and unjustly injured and killed, this all makes “sense.” But if we want protectors who serve the public good, we must change the training and the culture of fear propagated by the wicked.

In my previous essay I laid the groundwork for the discussion that is to follow about the anti-abortion  moral position and misogyny. As argued in that essay, a person can be anti-abortion and not a misogynist. It was also shown that attacking a person’s circumstances or consistency in regard to their professed belief in an anti-abortion  moral position does not disprove that position. It was, however, contended that consistency does matter when sorting out whether a person really does hold to an anti-abortion  position or is, in fact, using that as cover for misogyny.

Before Donald Trump, being openly misogynistic was generally a way to lose an election. As such, a clever (or cleverly managed) misogynist will endeavor to conceal his misogyny behind more laudable moral positions, such as professing to being pro-life. This, obviously, sells better than being anti-women.

 

Republicans typically profess that they are pro-life , but there is the question of whether they truly hold to this principle. Republicans are also regularly accused of being misogynists and part of this involves asserting that their anti-abortion stance is an anti-women stance. One way to sort this out is to consider whether a person acts consistently with their professed pro-life but not anti-women position. Since people are inconsistent though ignorance and moral weakness, this will not conclusively reveal the truth of the matter—but it is perhaps the best method of empirical investigation.

On the face of it, a pro-life position is the view that it is morally wrong to kill. If a person held to this principle consistently, then they would oppose all forms of killing and this would include hunting, killing animals for food, capital punishment, and killing in war. There are people who do hold to this view and are thus consistent. This view was taken very seriously by Christian thinkers such as St. Augustine and St. Aquinas. After all, as I say to my Ethics students, it would be a hell of a thing to go to Hell for eating a hamburger.

The pro-life  view that killing is wrong would seem to require a great deal of a person. In addition to being against just straight-up killing in war, abortion and capital punishment, it would also seem to require being against other things that kill people, such as poverty, pollution and disease. As such, a pro-life person would seem to be required to favor medical and social aid to fight things like disease and poverty that kill people.

As is obvious, there are many who profess being pro-life while opposing things that would reduce deaths. They even oppose such things as providing food support for mothers and infants who are mired in poverty. One might thus suspect that they are not so much pro-life as anti-woman. Of course, a person could be anti-abortion and still be opposed to society rendering aid to people to prevent death.

One option is to be against killing but be fine with letting people die. While philosophers do make this moral distinction, it seems a bit problematic for a person to claim that he opposes abortion because killing fetuses is wrong, but not providing aid and support to teenage mothers, the sick, and the starving is acceptable because one is just letting them die rather than killing them. Given this view, a “pro-life” person of this sort would be okay with a mother just abandoning her baby—she would simply be letting the baby die rather than killing her.

People who profess to be pro-life also often are morally onboard with killing and eating animals. The ethics of killing animals (and plants) was also addressed explicitly by Augustine and Aquinas. One way to be pro-life but hold that killing animals is acceptable is to contend that humans have a special moral status that other living things lack. The usual justification is that we are better than them, so we can kill (and eat) them. This view was held by St. Augustine and St. Anselm.

 However, embracing the superiority principle does provide an opening that can be used to justify abortion. One merely needs to argue that the fetus has a lower moral status than the woman and this would seem to warrant abortion.

Many people who profess a pro-life view also favor capital punishment and war. In fact, it is common to hear a politician smoothly switch from speaking of the sanctity of life to the need to kill terrorists and criminals. One way to be pro-life  and accept capital punishment and war is to argue that it is the killing of innocents that is wrong. Killing the non-innocent is fine.

The obvious problem is that capital punishment sometimes kills innocent people, and war always involves the death of innocents. If these killings are warranted in terms of interests, self-defense, or on utilitarian grounds, then the door is open for the same reasoning being applied to abortion. After all, if innocent adults and children can be killed for national security, economic interests or to protect us from terrorists, then fetuses can also be killed for the interests of the woman or on utilitarian grounds. Also, animals and plants are clearly innocent. Someone who is fine with killing people for the sake of interests or on utilitarian grounds yet professes to be devoutly pro-life might justifiably be suspected of being more anti-women than pro-life.

A professed pro-life position can also be interpreted as the moral principle that abortions should be prevented. This is, obviously, better described as anti-abortion rather than pro-life. One obvious way to prevent abortions is to prevent women from having them. This need not be a misogynistic view—one would need to consider why the person holds to this view and this can be explored by considering the person’s other expressed views on related matters.

If a person is anti-abortion, then she should presumably support ways to prevent abortion other than merely stopping women from having them. Two rather effective ways to reduce the number of abortions (and thus prevent some) are effective sex education and access to birth control. These significantly reduce the number of unwanted pregnancies and thus reduce the number of abortions. Not surprisingly, abstinence focused “sex education” fails dismally.

Being anti-abortion is rather like being anti-traffic fatality. Telling people to not drive will not really help. Teaching people how to drive safely and ensuring that protection is readily available does work quite well.

Because of this, if a person professes to be anti-abortion, yet is opposed to effective sex education and birth control, then it is reasonable to suspect misogyny. This is, of course, not conclusive: the person might have no dislike of women and sincerely believe that ignorance about sex is best, that abstinence works, and that birth control is evil. The person would not be a misogynist—just in error.

In closing, it must be reiterated that just because a person is inconsistent about their professed pro-life  moral principles, it does not follow that they must be a misogynist. After all, people are often inconsistent because of ignorance, because they fail to consider implications, and from moral weakness. However, if a person professes a pro-life  position, yet is consistently inconsistent in regards to their actions and other professed views, then it would not be unreasonable to consider that there might be some misogyny in play.